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Chapter 2. Problems of Health and Healthcare. Health Care as a Global Social Problem. What problems do developed nations face as opposed to developing nations? Access vs. Disease and life expectancy Life expectancy is related to the quality of health care in a society
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Chapter 2 Problems of Health and Healthcare
Health Care as a Global Social Problem • What problems do developed nations face as opposed to developing nations? • Access vs. Disease and life expectancy • Life expectancy is related to the quality of health care in a society • Infant mortality is associated with: • Health-care professionals in a society • Nutritional intake, sanitation, health facilities and health
The Scope of Health-Care Problems in America • Micro-level: how we experience health care on a personal level • Terminating the life-support of someone we know and love • Placing an elderly parent in a nursing home • Macro-level: the social forces that affect how health care is distributed in society
Unequal Access to Health Care • How do race, ethnicity, social class, and gender affect access to health care in the United States. • About 18% of Americans under age 65 do not currently have any health insurance • Factors related to a lack of insurance • Inequalities of race and ethnicity • Racial and ethnic minorities are likely to receive less or inferior care • Inequalities of social class & gender • Heart disease, asthma, breast cancer (pg 33) • Why do these inequalities persist?
Women and Health Care Abortion rights Increase the awareness of medical personnel to the health needs of women Less intervention in the birth process Medicalization of women Women & their needs underrepresented in the health care industry
What does Inadequate Protection mean? • Prevention v. Treatment • Pay as you go • Health Insurance • Over 45 million Americans lack insurance • Problems with Medicaid and Medicare • Costs due to administrative waste and abuse • Who will be hurt the most?
Figure 2-6 & 7: Health Insurance Coverage & % of Firms Offering Health Benefit
AIDS - A Modern Plague • HIV & AIDS - a global epidemic • Exchange of bodily fluids from infected person’s blood, semen, vaginal fluid • Sexual activity • Blood transfusion • Hypodermic needles • An infected mother to her unborn or newborn infant
AIDS Orphans Over 15 million AIDS orphans in the world of which 80% are from sub-Saharan Africa Psychological impact on families Economic impact Lack of affordable drugs in poor nations
Figure 2-12: Number of Children Who Lost Their Mother or Both Parents to HIV/AIDS
Figure 2-11: Routes of AIDS Transmission Among Males and Females, United States
Should health care be treated as a commodity, or as a basic right (as is public education)?